Travel agencies are falling short in their duty of care policies for customers, a survey has revealed.
Compiling the Travel Incident Survey on behalf of corporate responsibility company We Care emergency information guide publisher Fisher’s Travel SOS approached 400 travel agencies. Only 147 agreed to answer the survey.
Of these, 81% admitted they did not have an emergency recovery policy for assisting customers in difficulty abroad while 76% do not provide any emergency services for customers when abroad.
A further 64% of respondents were not able to provide help in a specific emergency, from legal problems to transport ones, although 52% of respondents said they did supply customers with contact details for airlines and other transport companies.
Just 19% of agencies provided contact details for embassies and consular services.
Fisher’s Travel SOS publisher Julian Fisher said: “Looking at the results, it’s clear that agencies, who have actual personal contact with the customer and who are therefore in a position to provide a greater sense of ‘care’, don’t.
“Whilst this non-caring attitude is expected from the ever increasing ‘online only’ agencies, we thought traditional agencies would have the sense and understanding to care for their travellers when travelling and when abroad. It seems that this is categorically not the case.”